


The Kosarr Affair

by manic_intent



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: M/M, No Spoilers, Random post Star Wars ideas, That Star Wars AU where Napoleon is a Sith Lord and Illya is a Sith Admiral, no real plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 11:13:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5495081
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kosarr was a Mid Rim space station on the Durkteel Loop hyperlane, born of the Saurin hardline approach to illegal substances. Officially, it was a refuel stop just parsecs off Durkteel itself, for any ships that didn’t have the juice to jump to a Durkteel satberth. Unofficially, it was a barely tolerated den of iniquity built into an asteroid that had been towed into orbit around one of Durkteel’s moons, where all the hard drinking, hard dosing, meat trafficking and gambling could take place neatly offworld and out of sight. </p><p>“Shoot anyone who tries to board,” Illya told the two stormtroopers by the airlock as he prepared to disembark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Kosarr Affair

**Author's Note:**

> I did get bored of writing in the TMFU fandom… and then Henry goes and posts this on his instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/_b5rA4A5qw/ 
> 
> :o 
> 
> ...and so the Star Wars crossover was born. I’m not familiar with the Star Wars ‘verse because of my short term memory/I’ve never read the books, so I guess this is kinda in a Star Wars/TMFU verse that sits prior to the Rule of Two, where there are many Sith, many Jedi, and a war between the Republic and the Sith armada. (Pre Galactic Empire)
> 
> No spoilers for the films. Basically, Sith!Napoleon x Admiral!Illya.

I.

Kosarr was a Mid Rim space station on the Durkteel Loop hyperlane, born of the Saurin hardline approach to illegal substances. Officially, it was a refuel stop just parsecs off Durkteel itself, for any ships that didn’t have the juice to jump to a Durkteel satberth. Unofficially, it was a barely tolerated den of iniquity built into an asteroid that had been towed into orbit around one of Durkteel’s moons, where all the hard drinking, hard dosing, meat trafficking and gambling could take place neatly offworld and out of sight.

“Shoot anyone who tries to board,” Illya told the two stormtroopers by the airlock as he prepared to disembark. 

“Copy that, Admiral,” said the closest stormtrooper, his voice neutral and tinny through the helmet comms. Illya turned away to hide his irritation from his men, hands twitching at his sides as the airlock began to disengage. The Sith frigate _Widowmaker_ had its own hyperdrive unit, but with the cruiser _Relentless_ looming a parsec away, visible as a spec against the sun even from Kosarr, it wasn’t as though they were trying very hard to hide their presence. 

Going out in force in Kosarr was just going to cause trouble, though. Not because the usual scum that clung to the station’s surface was anti-Sith: any usual berth-takers at Kosarr were highly unlikely to care about intergalactic politics - save where it proved profitable. Stormtrooper armour and gear could be quickly traded down on Kosarr for any number of illegal substances: and the gangs that ran rife in the station might be desperate enough to give it a shot. Literally.

“Disengaging air lock, Admiral.” Lieutenant Kolya sounded carefully neutral, which was his way of projecting disapproval, and were Illya any other Admiral, Illya himself would agree that going on a private jaunt in Kosarr to find and locate a wayward Sith Lord was idiotic at best and suicidal at worst. 

Illya’s reflection stared back at him from the polished steel of the air lock mechanisms for a heartbeat before the coglike links began to twist in concentric rings. His mouth was set in a grim, thin line, his blue eyes narrowed and hard, tawny hair buzzed short over his temples and inching longer over his scalp. Taller than most, he had shed his usual, harshly black Sith uniform for a mismatched set of spacer gear: a coat with welded steel shoulder pads and thermal underweave, replicated leather breeches that ran into knee-high grav boots, blasters slung low over his hips. He’d rubbed grease and stains on the fabric for effect, but Illya knew that he would only pass as a spacer on a surface glance, even among the mostly human and human-like Twi’lek spacers who made up the bulk of Kosarr’s usual population.

They’d taken a quiet berth and paid off the harbourmaster, but Illya knew that didn’t guarantee privacy, not in a place like Kosarr. This lower level was old, the stasis bubble in the berths flickering alarmingly, pale and blue against the void of deep space beyond, and the floor was greasy and had seen far better days. It was empty of even servodroids and harbour drones: they had bought out all the berths for the privacy, a privilege for which they had been charged a painfully steep rate. He saw no one as he stepped off the gangway and down onto the heavier grav of the space station, but he kept his hands close to his blasters as he headed briskly towards a servo door, splicing the lock efficiently and letting himself through. Cargo lifts would be watched, and as far as Illya was concerned, he’d paid more than enough to bypass customs. 

The servo links coughed him up nicely in a quiet, if filthy nook of the Meatmarket, the whole level lit garishly in a dull, strobing red light. Somewhere, someone was screaming, high and thin, male or female Illya could not tell, a single, despairing note vaguely audible over the din of slave commerce, the main blight on Kosarr. There were few Saurin here, mostly serving as security for the larger skin traders, and Illya avoided the cage shops and their fervent stink of hopelessness and pain. Napoleon wouldn’t be here. The skin trade wasn’t his favourite flavour of sin. Not this sort, anyway. 

It took a few rounds of the gambling pits before Illya finally found his target. Napoleon was perched at a Daza table, grimy cards in hand, playing a hand of Durkteel slam against a trio of other spacers: Twi’leks and a Rodian, cred chips stacked up by an elbow. Napoleon was also dressed for the occasion, though he probably carried it off better than Illya: the Dark Lord knew where Napoleon had gotten his hands on a passable copy of a freighter pilot’s uniform, steel-rim goggles, gloves, gray jumpsuit and all, a blaster holstered by a thigh brace, no lightsaber in sight. But then again, Illya wasn’t even sure how Napoleon had gotten off the _Relentless_.

Napoleon smiled sharply as Illya pointedly took a seat beside him on the Daza table, not in the least remorseful. Before Illya could say anything, however, Napoleon had a hand clamped around the back of his neck, hauling him over with a quick jerk that nearly overbalanced Illya right into Napoleon’s lap. “ _There_ you are,” Napoleon said brightly, and before the eyes of all and sundry, kissed Illya hard on the mouth.

One of the Twi’lek spacers made a grunting sound of laughter even as, under the Daza table, Illya dug his fingers tightly into the meat of Napoleon’s thigh. This didn’t seem to deter Napoleon in the least, not until Illya bit him hard on the lip: that was when Napoleon finally let him go, grinning wickedly, sucking on the wound. Illya glared at him, his lip curling, stiffening up as Napoleon patted him on the knee and turned back to his hand of cards. 

“All right, sweetheart, you got me,” Napoleon flicked a full jack out into the draw, passing on a bid. “Just gimme one more play an’ I’ll come back to the ship. I’ll make it up to ya,” Napoleon added, in a surprisingly good Outer Rim drawl, all Mos Eisley twang sprinkled with a thick Kessler burr, none of his usual crisp Inner World diction. “Let ya put me through the bunk, eh?” 

Illya flushed, with irritation rather than embarrassment, but a string of laughter threaded through Napoleon’s opponents, and reluctantly, Illya nodded. It wasn’t as though Illya had any plans for hauling a recalcitrant Sith Lord anywhere against his will. He settled for scowling at the game in progress. Daza was the least controversial of any of games of chance on this floor: it didn’t usually involve bloodletting, and table rules were fairly standard, making it a positively vanilla game of choice for a Sith Lord, in Illya’s opinion. But then again, Napoleon was not like any Sith whom Illya had ever met, and it was just like him to prefer a game of sleight-of-hand and trickery to bloodsports. 

“Calm down,” Napoleon murmured to Illya, as the Rodian at the table flicked a high grift onto Napoleon’s draw, its fist-sized, pupiless black eyes blinking slowly and wetly in its vaguely amphibian, narrow-snouted face. “You’ll draw attention.” 

“ _I’m_ drawing attention, am I?” Illya replied, in a low hiss.

“Relax. Three days’ shore leave, right?”

“I never authorised that.” Three days on _Kosarr_? Illya would probably lose a third of his crew. Thankfully, he’d left instructions to have everyone other than the transport crew confined aboard.

Napoleon stared at Illya thoughtfully, with that annoying half-smile of his, inscrutable as ever. Powerfully built and surprisingly handsome, all that the inevitable physical corruption that the Force had wrought on the Sith Lord was the red of his pupils, and a paleness to his skin. Square-jawed and always neatly groomed, even now Napoleon’s soft dark hair frayed only a few strands over his high forehead, his lush mouth curled up at the edges, his elegant, dexterous fingers pressed lightly over his draw of cards. If Sith Lords were chaos given flesh, then Napoleon was not a tidal force, not like the other Lords whom Illya had ever met. Napoleon’s breed of chaos was wildness, the fey mischief that sat at the fickle edges of every man’s soul, that whispered poison and madness from the dark. 

“Hey sweetheart,” Napoleon raised his voice a fraction. “No need t’pout. You want me so bad, I’ll fold,” Napoleon told the frowning Twi’lek dealer, who grunted, and watched keenly as Napoleon counted out cred chips. Napoleon uncurled from the table, scooping up the rest of the chips into a pouch, and it took all of Illya’s self-control not to flinch away as Napoleon slipped an arm around his waist, leaning close. 

“Berth is that way,” Illya dug in his heels as Napoleon started to walk them towards the upper levels. 

“I want to cash in my chips and pick something up,” Napoleon countered, back to his usual Inner Worlds accent, with a winning smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “It won’t take long.” 

“Fine,” Illya conceded, with ill grace. “But touch my ass again and I break your wrist.” 

“Oh Captain,” Napoleon grinned, though he moved his hand back up to Illya’s hip, “You are a revelation and a delight.” 

“Cannot say the same about you,” Illya muttered, which made Napoleon laugh, as it always did. Annoyed, Illya fell stubbornly silent as they made their way to a maintenance stairwell: thankfully, Napoleon hadn’t taken enough leave of his senses to try the wheezing old jaunt lifts that serviced the station floors, and Illya shoved Napoleon’s hand pointedly off his hip the moment they were in private. 

“So prickly as always,” Napoleon said mournfully. “You break my heart.”

“You’ll live.”

“I _am_ a Sith Lord.”

“Dark Lord has two Lords and far more Sith Masters waiting in the wings,” Illya retorted, as he started up the steep, metal grille stairs. “Number of useful Admirals, not so much.” 

Napoleon sighed, pouting. Illya pretended not to notice: for all his words, he knew that Napoleon’s tolerance of supposed impertinence was rare. Although it was true that the Dark Lord would have been displeased were Illya to be force choked to death by any of his Sith Lords, it would be scant comfort to Illya after the fact, and as such he had always watched himself carefully when assigned to other Sith Lords. Napoleon, however, brought out the worst in Illya.

Thankfully, Napoleon kept his hands to himself, even when they came out onto the cramped, crowded bunk floor that served as Kosarr’s squalid idea of a residential district. Rooms were called ‘holes’ on the station, quite literally, bored into the asteroid, barely half a mile away from the unprotected surface. The air smelled rank and thin, of too many species living together at far too close quarters, greasy and foul. Illya grit his teeth as they sidestepped a Twi’lek slumped against a filthy wall, eyes vacant and lost in Dust dreams.

“Should I be surprised that you have room here?” Illya growled, his grip on Galactic starting to slip in his irritation. 

“Probably not.” Napoleon agreed cheerfully, then added, “I wasn’t born to this life.” 

Illya nodded slowly. “I heard. You were corsair before.”

“I prefer the term ‘creative reacquisitions’.” 

“Thief is a thief.” Illya shot back, and narrowed his eyes as Napoleon set his jaw.

“Someday, Captain, you’re going to have to tell me why you don’t like me so much,” Napoleon began, then paused, as a pair of humans and a Rodian scuttled past them, eyes cast low. Behind them was a heavyset Twi’lek flanked by four Saurin, all dressed up in heavy tempered plating and blastweave leather, rifles held loosely in their scaly, thick-fingered grips, toothy mouths grinning in their lizard-like skulls, towering a foot over even Illya, massive in the confines of the corridor. 

“You,” growled the blue-skinned Twi’lek, his lekku ringed at the base of their prehensile lengths with silver and gold, curling out from the back of his skull and folded over his armoured shoulders. “I told you not to show your face around these parts any longer, Solo.”

“Just visiting, Mokdar,” Napoleon said, with one of his charming smiles. “You sure know how to hold a grudge. It’s been what, twelve years?”

“I never forget a grudge,” Mokdar snapped. “ _Especially_ not when I’ve been stolen from. Where’s my skip?” 

“Repurposed for a better cause? How about we live and let live?” Napoleon asked, still smiling. “For old time’s sake?” 

“I’ll show you old time’s sake,” Mokdar snarled, making a sharp gesture in Napoleon’s direction. Illya’s hand went for his blaster, but Napoleon was quicker - he had a palm pressed against Illya’s wrist, gently stilling him. From where Illya stood, he couldn’t see Napoleon make any other gestures, but abruptly, the advancing Saurin bodyguards toppled, crashing heavily to the walkway, unconscious or dead. 

“Funny thing about humanoids,” Napoleon said conversationally, as he ambled forward, thumbs hooked in his belt. “Some of my, ah, _colleagues_ like to go to all that show and dance of choking someone to death, when all you really need to do is pinch a one tiny little artery to the brain shut. Finesse. That’s what’s sorely lacking. Imagination, too.”

Mokdar was slowly growing pale as realisation dawned, and he tried to turn and run, but Napoleon clenched a hand into a fist, and he stayed, rooted to the floor. Around them, the doors to holes slammed shut in a rippling panic, residents scrambling to hide or get away, until it seemed like a choking cloud of silence had fallen, broken only by the background whir of air recyclers. 

“I thought I might give you a chance,” Napoleon added. “See if you’d changed. But I guess people don’t change, do they? You’ve even moved up in the world.” Napoleon beckoned, and one of the golden rings slipped off Mokdar’s lekku, hovering before Napoleon’s eyes before he flicked it aside. “Ten years of misery you caused me, Mokdar, and everyone up here. I don’t forget grudges either.” 

Mokdar made a whimpering sound as he slowly, jerkily drew his blaster from his hip. Napoleon continued to smile, with an unsettling sort of gentle mischief, as Mokdar raised his blaster, hand trembling, aiming the muzzle under his chin. Illya flinched again at the sound of the shot, and Mokdar crumpled limply onto the walkway, blaster skittering aside. 

“All right, Captain,” Napoleon said out aloud. “Let’s head back. Everyone's done here.” He grinned over his shoulder at Illya, all gallow’s humour, and later, Illya would remember this as the point of infection, when he had looked death itself in the madness of its mischief and had felt only the first, insane stirrings of lust.

1.0.

After the side trip to Kosarr, what little professional rapport that had previously existed between Napoleon and Admiral Illya Kuryakin seemed to have deteriorated even further. Before Kosarr, Illya would grudgingly afford Napoleon a polite nod in greeting whenever Napoleon ran into him aboard the _Relentless_ , and sometimes even offer a brief update on the ship. For the past few days, however, Illya either quickly turned around the moment he saw Napoleon or managed to avoid him altogether. Illya took his meals privately instead of in the officer’s mess, and never seemed to be around in the rec room.

“I’m not surprised,” his human apprentice said tartly, when Napoleon complained privately to her. “It was going to happen sooner or later.” 

Napoleon swallowed a sigh. When the Dark Lord had pushed an apprentice on Napoleon, he had complained bitterly at the start. Since then, he had managed to get used to having Gabreel around, but it became quickly obvious why the Dark Lord had strung them both together. Like Napoleon, Gabreel had what the Dark Lord tended to call a ‘problematic’ approach to ‘legitimate authority’. She was human as well, young and pretty, her dark hair tied into a tight coil at the back of her skull, dressed in the form-fitting black cloth-and-leather tunic and breeches of a Sith apprentice.

“How so?”

“You haven’t been particularly subtle about sniffing after his ass, _Master_ Solo,” Gabreel said, even as she sidestepped a swipe from Napoleon’s staff and parried the next. Practicing with actual lightsabers aboard a spacefaring vessel meant instant lethal decompression were they to accidentally puncture the hull, and so they'd settled for staves and practice blades. 

“It’s such a _nice_ ass,” Napoleon pointed out, just to make Gabreel scowl at him and aim a tight serious of jabs at his neck. “Watch your footing, Gaby. Better. Don’t get distracted.”

“ _You_ don’t get distracted,” Gabreel shot back, and to highlight her point, slapped the end of her staff smartly against Napoleon’s flank. “Seriously,” she added, as Napoleon winced and retreated, “You’ve never had an Admiral willing to endure your presence for longer than two tours before until now. So if you don’t patch up, we’re going to be stuck planetside again somewhere, and this time, the Dark Lord will probably slap us on _Hoth_ or somewhere equally pleasant.” 

True. 

“He was once an _infiltrator_ ,” Napoleon complained. “Surely he’s seen worse.” Napoleon had done some digging when the surprisingly young Admiral had first been assigned to him, and had been surprised to find that even _his_ clearance level as a Sith Lord hadn’t given him full access to Illya’s file. 

“Whatever he once was, does it matter? After all, whatever upset him,” Gabreel lowered her staff, going back on the defensive, “Was probably your fault.”

Also true.

After another couple of days spent playing tag with the Admiral aboard the ship, however, Napoleon got bored and quietly spliced the electronic lock in Illya’s cabin, letting himself in. Illya was still on duty, which gave Napoleon a little time to poke around, just in case Illya’s sudden change in temperament came from something more insidious than a Kosarr wake-up call. 

Illya returned to his cabin when Napoleon was lounging at the desk, having just logged off the terminal, and he blinked in surprise for a moment before a flash of annoyance twisted his pretty face, and for a moment the familiarity of it all sparked a wave of relief. It didn’t last. Illya’s expression went carefully blank.

“Sir?” 

Until Kosarr, Illya had studiously avoided having to make any reference to Napoleon’s technically superior rank. Napoleon grimaced. “Admiral. Perhaps you’d like to clear something up for me. You’ve worked with J’anna and Kolkka, right?”

Illya nodded slowly. “Yes sir.”

“Watched them kill?”

Illya’s fingers twitched. “Yes sir.”

“With what?”

“Force powers. Kolkka with a lightsaber as well.”

“J’anna always was a lazy one,” Napoleon conceded, amused. “So what was the difference between that and what I did on Kosarr?”

“No difference,” Illya said, clearly uncomfortable, for all that his expression remained neutral. “Sir.”

“Seems to me that we have a problem that wasn’t there before.” 

“We do, sir?” 

“Oh, give me some credit,” Napoleon pushed himself up from the desk, striding over. Illya was taller than him, which made him difficult to intimidate, even if Illya himself seemed naturally immune to intimidation. Normally. Now, however, he flushed a little as Napoleon got right up in his personal space, pressing a finger into Illya’s shoulder. “You’ve been jumping at my presence for _days_. Even my apprentice has noticed. So. What’s the problem?”

“… No problem, sir,” Illya muttered, his flush deepening. Exasperated, Napoleon narrowed his eyes, using the faintest touch of the Force to skim the surface of Illya’s mind, and-

Oh. Well then. 

“If you want to fuck me,” Napoleon said, very dryly, “You could’ve just said something.” 

Illya sucked in a thin breath, sharply, then let it all out in a rush. “Force powers,” he muttered, if ruefully. 

“Did you feel like this about J’anna and Kolkka as well?” Napoleon asked curiously, which was as far as he got - Illya pulled him close, tentatively at first, then his fingers curled tightly over Napoleon’s hips as Napoleon leaned up to kiss him, a proper kiss, this time, not one for show, properly wet, palms pressed to Illya’s warming cheeks, breaths catching, tongues rasping curiously together, meeting. 

It was better than what Napoleon had hoped for, Illya wary at first, then demanding. He wasn’t afraid of Napoleon in the least, which was a bit of a relief. Fear poisoned lust and soured any chance of joy out of it, and joy was a rare drug in Napoleon’s life nowadays, ever since he had caved to his survivor’s instincts and traded what little remained of his moral conscience for power that he still did not quite understand. 

Illya’s bunk was made for one _and_ for space travel, which meant fitting two on top of it was a careful negotiation of limbs and fingers. They fit together and then they didn’t, clothes dragged off in uneven starts, kicked to the floor; Illya naked was a revelation in sheer physical perfection. “You’re _gorgeous_ ,” Napoleon said, awed, and Illya sniffed disdainfully and marked him high on his neck, hard enough that Napoleon would be sporting it tomorrow even over the collar of his robes. He didn’t care. Bedding someone like Illya was a privilege worth showing off over. 

Napoleon let Illya lead, let him pin Napoleon to the bed to kiss him; he got a spit-slicked palm between them both, stroking, a slow and deliberate show of control and strength that had Illya shuddering against him, pressing soft gasping moans against Napoleon’s mouth, a hunger that he drank down, an infection of lust that he fed back. Illya growled as Napoleon groped a hand up over his skull, bit when Napoleon dropped fingers to the back of his neck, and let out a strangled keening whine as Napoleon pinched the tip of his cock with a touch of the Force, none too gently. It was frenzied after that, lust caught in a vector of sweat and broken whispers and just enough pain to write mementoes over skin and flesh; Illya spent himself with Napoleon’s fingers dug against his scalp, Illya’s fingernails clawing bloody lines down Napoleon’s chest. In hindsight, it was perhaps inevitable that mere release did little to sate either of them.

In the morning, tangled together, Napoleon murmured, “You never did answer my question.”

Illya muttered something darkly against Napoleon’s neck, then asked gruffly, “What question?” He sounded sleepy, his voice hoarse, and Napoleon smirked against Illya’s hair as he rubbed a hand soothingly down the sleek curve of Illya’s back. 

“What the problem was.”

“I thought it was obvious.” Illya nipped him. “Like you said. Wanted to fuck you.”

“Was it something I did on Kosarr?”

“What do you think?” Illya eased himself up on his elbows, frowning over at Napoleon. At least all that artificial reserve had duly evaporated: Illya was his prickly, suspicious self all over again. 

“When I killed Mokdar and his friends…?”

“Obviously.” Illya hesitated, but only for a moment. “Have never seen anyone use force powers like that before. Like scalpel rather than sledgehammer.”

“If I knew that something like _that_ was all it took to impress you…” Napoleon said teasingly. “So what do I have to do next? Take down a star destroyer with a toothpick? A planet?”

Before Illya could answer, his lieutenant patched in on the intercom. “Admiral, the Dark Lord has a message for you and for Lord Napoleon.” 

“Copy that, Lieutenant,” Illya said out aloud, briefly activating his voice link.

“The Great Work never ends,” Napoleon said facetiously, as they started to disentangle themselves from each other. 

“Think of it as an opportunity to impress me again,” Illya told him, and smirked as Napoleon started to chuckle.

“You’re one hell of a taskmaster, Admiral.”

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent
> 
> \--
> 
> no continuation planned.  
> I probably do have at least one more tmfu in the works, since a gift exchange is starting up for 2016. :) see you guys there. see @badtouches on twitter for more details / visit spuncleexchange.tumblr.com


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